In a matter of months, Lena’s ex-husband will be released from prison. After years of abuse, she's desperate to maintain distance from him. A housing transfer could make all the difference for her and her children.

Help Lena get transferred into safe housing before her abusive ex-husband returns

Raising her children has been the joy of Lena’s life. But today, she’s worried that their lives will soon be in jeopardy. In a matter of months, Lena’s ex-husband will be released from prison. She is terrified about what will happen if he finds them.

Lena’s ex-husband is a San Francisco native with the friends – and enemies – to prove it. Before going to prison, her life was a whirlwind of physical violence at home and gang-related interactions outside of it. In 2014, Lena filed a restraining order against her ex-husband, followed by a request for full custody of their kids. Not only did Child Protective Services grant her full custody, but they also negated all of his visitation rights. Nevertheless, her ex-husband violated the restraining order on a regular basis for over the following year. Then, all of a sudden, the visits stopped. Lena discovered that her ex had been sent to prison on drug-related charges, leaving the family in relative peace for two years.

As his sentence draws to a close, Lena is worried that her ex-husband and those connected with him may re-enter her family’s lives. She has decided that their safest option is to leave the Bay Area entirely. This fall, Lena secured a transfer from her employer to another county. Now, she’s just waiting on a housing transfer to finally make the move.

As a resident in one of San Francisco’s 5 public housing developments, Lena was required to submit an emergency transfer request to the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) in order to move. She did so a few months ago but only recently heard back. In response, SFHA informed her that they rarely grant transfers to other developments, much less other counties. Lena’s move would be unprecedented.

That’s where Open Door Legal comes in. Our housing attorneys are now working on behalf of Lena to push her case forward. Since all tenants have a right to feel safe in their own home, our attorneys believe that it is worth supporting Lena in this effort. Will you sponsor her legal fees so that Lena can focus on what matters: keeping their lives safe from a dangerous man?

Philip Green

Belinda Liu

Sil Liapis

Elder Law Attorney

(415) 610-5991
sil@opendoorlegal.org

Hannah Wischnia

Engagement Associate

(415) 906-0578
hannah@opendoorlegal.org

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Our Story

Our organization started when we realized that it was in fact possible to ensure universal access to civil representation for everyone. For years, we had watched existing legal aid nonprofits turn away more people than they helped. We had seen the government grossly underfund legal aid and attach ever-more restrictions on who could be helped. We had witnessed the private sector invest atrociously little of its accumulated wealth into legal aid.

The result of this is predictable: legal aid has become the least resourced social need in the United States. Most low and moderate-income Americans can’t get help, and as a result can’t properly enforce their rights.

We realized that by combining program innovations, new strategies for generating earned income, and a focus on fundraising from the general public we could create a system that solved this massive problem and guaranteed access to legal representation for everyone in a community, on every issue.

We decided to prototype this system in Bayview/Hunters Point because it was the only high-need neighborhood of San Francisco without a legal aid office in the neighborhood. In late 2012 we raised about $8,000 in seed funding from some generous private donors and decided to put our theories to the test.

We opened our doors on January 7th, 2013. In our first year, our core staff worked tirelessly on minimum wage to deliver services to dozens of clients. The heating in the office didn’t work, the furniture was rotten, and we couldn’t afford a receptionist. We had to scrounge office supplies and equipment from people we knew.

But we proved that our model could work. We never turned away someone for services who lived in the local community, and by rigorously tracking our outcomes we were able to get more and more support from people that hadn’t funded legal aid before. We tripled our budget between our first and second year and tripled it again in our third year.

We’ve come a long way since the days when we had to hand shred everything because we couldn’t afford a shredder. We’re excited by what the future can bring and look forward to growing our model out to encompass more and more people.

Our Board of Directors

We are proud to have a diverse board featuring local residents and professionals from a variety of different industries. The board is in charge of implementing the member-approved annual budget and overseeing our staff.